THE HAGUE, 19/12/09 - The Dutch authorities do not have to ask Spain to extradite pilot Julio Poch. The Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) is allowed to leave his trial to Argentina, a judge in The Hague ruled Friday.

Poch has for a number of months been in prison in Spain, which arrested him at the request of Argentina. He is said to have carried out 'death flights' at the time of the military junta. In the death flights, opponents of the Videla-regime were thrown out of aircraft at sea.

Poch, until recently a pilot at Dutch airline Transavia, has dual Dutch and Argentine nationality. He wanted to be tried in the Netherlands. But the judge in The Hague has now ruled that the OM is not required to ask Spain to extradite him but can choose for itself whether to prosecute someone.

The OM wants to do so and will now leave it up to Argentina to try Poch. His lawyer unsuccessfully argued that he would not be given a fair trial in Argentina, that Poch has Dutch nationality and that he has been living in the Netherlands since the 1980s and that the case came about due to statements of Dutch witnesses.

The verdict does say that it would be appropriate for the Dutch authorities to try to obtain a guarantee of return via diplomatic channels in Argentina, so that Poch, if convicted, could serve his sentence in the Netherlands. Here, the judge argued that the Netherlands tipped Argentina off that Poch would on 22 September be in the Spanish city of Valencia, where he was arrested. The Netherlands refused to extradite him to the South American country itself, because he has Dutch nationality.